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<!DOCTYPE HTML>
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<title>Blog of Ryan Bigg - Violence in the Ruby community</title>
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<h1 align='center'><a href='http://ryanbigg.com'>The Life of a Radar</a></h1>
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<article>
<a href="/2013/10/violence-in-the-ruby-community"><header>Violence in the Ruby community</header></a>
<small>14 Oct 2013</small><br>
<p>This post was written by myself and my fiancee,
<a href="https://twitter.com/smly_law">Sharon</a>, about the sexual assault of Justine
Arreche by Joe O'Brien at Codemash 2013. Both Joe and Justine are, like me,
members of the Ruby community. Sharon is a lawyer who's currently supporting
domestic violence victims in her work, and feels that domestic violence and
other violent acts against women are symptomatic of a lack of respect towards
women by men. Misogyny, basically.</p>
<p>I read out <a href="http://blogjustine.wordpress.com/2013/10/12%0A/because-it-needs-to-be-said/">Justine's post</a> to Sharon over the weekend; she was driving at
the time. I also told her that there's <em>at least</em> one sexual assault in the
tech community every two months, and that the statistic is probably higher
because a lot of them probably go unreported. She was shocked but said that a
lot of violent crimes perpetrated against women do go unreported. Often the
perpetrator is known to the victim, and this is largely one of the reasons
that crimes don't get reported. Sometimes it's a breakdown in trust and
there's so much confusion on the part of the victim about what's happened, who
did it, and how to react to it.</p>
<p>Justine's post is evidence of all of these things. She questioned her own
judgments, she apportioned blame to herself for a crime that was committed
against her and she didn't feel she could speak out about it. It wasn't until
long after (9 months) the act had been committed, did she appear to feel she
was safe to talk about it. By that stage, the perpetrator (Joe), had well and
truly gotten away with the act, it seems.</p>
<p>Justine expresses in her post, something that Sharon sees every day in her
work. A woman who feels that she has been the only one to have worn the cost
of what someone else has done to her. What someone else <em>chose</em> to do to her.</p>
<p>In Australia, any sexual assault is a crime. A workplace should not cover this
up. Any investigation into this sort of matter should include the police and
charges should be laid against the perpetrator. Joe needs to be held to
account for his actions in a court of law and Justine should be entitled to
that kind of justice. She even says herself in her post that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want him to recognize the toll he's taken on my life and how everything
has changed for me. How he took so much of myself away from how I used to
be.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's not clear from Justine's post whether any legal action has happened. We
certainly hope it has. As it stands already, he has committed career suicide
for himself by doing this, and worst of all has affected someone else's
potential career. Not to mention the flow on effects of all this as well.
Justine became withdrawn from her colleagues, her family, broken up with her
boyfriend and still struggles with day-to-day life. No woman anywhere in the
world should feel this threatened. Especially in a community which has the
mantra "Matz is nice, so we are nice".</p>
<p>Sharon is appalled to learn that women feel this threatened in the Ruby
community. The Ruby community is one that is partly professional, and partly
social. To me, Ruby has been like a third family for the past 8 years. Sharon
knows how much the Ruby community means to me. I love it to bits, more than
because it pays the bills. Programming is something I enjoy doing and I enjoy
attending conferences because I don't feel threatened there. When I hear about
other people attending conferences and feeling threatened in any way by
anyone, it makes me feel like I don't want to do those things anymore.</p>
<p>In any professional community, there is no place for sexual violence. Sharon
wonders what it is that makes a community accept violence in any way and
suspects its because people don't stand against it when it happens on a small
scale. There's a saying that Sharon really likes: "From little things, big
things grow". If there is a little violence, you can sure bet that big
violence will be on its way.</p>
<p>What does this mean pratically in the Ruby community? We think, that like any
other community, if small things are said or done or encouraged, whether the
people are intoxicated or not, it breaks down people's sensitivity towards
those things. We think that encouraging a woman to do bodyshots at a
professional conference is a small thing that perpetrates violence against
that woman. It is an act of disrespect to that woman as a human being and a
professional. Why didn't the other men in the bar discourage her from doing
that? Or discourage other people from insisting that she do that? Would you
encourage a man in the community to do that? If not, then why would you
encourage a woman? Show some respect.</p>
<p>In Australia, we have <a href="http://www.whiteribbon.org.au/">White Ribbon Day</a>,
which is a male-led movement to end violence against women. This movement aims
to encourage men to <em>never to commit, excuse or remain silent about violence
against women.</em> Sharon and I support the Ruby community thinking about this
theology and applying it seeing as the Ruby community is predominantly male
and wants to attract more women programmers. Sharon has some pretty strong
thoughts on this, extending to other industries as well.</p>
<p>The Ruby community should make the space for women to feel comfortable and
that includes making effort to discourage disrespectful behaviour, thoughts
and conversations about women. Men generally, but specifically the Ruby
community, need to start seeing women not as objects for their own
gratification or pleasure, but as other human beings who have thoughts, who
can make a valuable contribution to the community -- see women like Sandi Metz
and Sarah Mei. Women are human beings, equal in every way.</p>
<p>If you see any act of violence committed against any member of this community
or others: please speak up about it. Go over to them and ask if everyone's OK.
That's sometimes all people need. If you can't go there, talk to someone else
about it. The worst thing you can do is to stay silent about it.</p>
<p>This culture of men thinking that it's ok to make those comments and to act
that way towards women, has to be stopped.</p>
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